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Bloomberg reported today that Google is negotiating with the FTC over the amount of fines for its Apple Safari breach. "The fine could amount to more than $10 million dollars, said the person, who declined to be identified because the talks are confidential. The fine would be the first by the FTC for a violation of Internet privacy as the agency steps up enforcement of consumers’ online rights."

To rewind the tape, last year Google was slapped with a consent decree for their launch of the ill-fated "Buzz" social network. "The consent decree states in no uncertain terms that before Google introduces new services that publicly disclose a user’s information, it must first obtain express opt-in consent from that user," reported the Center for Democracy and Technology last March. "When Buzz launched, CDT called the service 'a textbook example of how to violate the principles of Privacy by Design.'”

This February, Stanford researcher Jonathan Mayer published a study that found that Google and three other companies, Vibrant Media Inc., WPP PLC's Media Innovation Group LLC and Gannett Co.'s PointRoll Inc., were circumventing Apple's Safari browser's privacy setting and placing unwanted ad tracking cookies on unsuspecting users computers. The Wall Street Journal did their own independent confirmation of the Stanford research that "found that ads on 22 of the top 100 websites installed the Google tracking code on a test computer, and ads on 23 sites installed it on an iPhone browser." On the basis of the report, the FTC opened its investigation.

Particularly interesting here is one group that is trying to "take responsibility" for prodding the FTC's investigation, the plausibly named, ConsumerWatchdog.org. In a press release that immediately followed the Bloomberg story, the group's Privacy Project director, John M. Simpson, writes, "I am delighted the FTC appears ready to take strong action against an obvious violation of Google's promises to honor users' privacy in its 'Buzz' Consent Decree with the Commission." The group then offers a link to their original complaint to the FTC, dated the day after the Stanford report came out.

But if you do a little checking on ConsumerWatchdog.org you find that they have a doppelgänger organization (you can't make this stuff up!), ConsumerWatchdogWatch.com. The WatchdogWatch lists a litany of purported improprieties and opacities in Watchdog's funding sources, motives and lavish lifestyle spending. There are many reputable privacy rights organizations that likely lobbied the FTC as well, and the Stanford report itself may have been a compelling enough prod for regulatory action. So it is just curious that this particular organization seems to be taking a victory lap over this. They are clearly on Google's case (at who's behest it is not clear) and have also filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking all documents in the FCC’s investigation of Google Wi-Spy StreetView scandal.

“Google is quickly becoming the privacy problem child for regulators in the U.S. and Europe,” Bloomberg quotes Jeffrey Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy. “The Commission’s work to enforce its consent decree with Google shows there’s a real regulatory cop on the digital beat.” Whether it's Google, Facebook, Apple or Amazon, the astounding scale of potential digital trespass requires increased vigilance. Let's hope the FCC proves more muscular than the FTC has been so far.

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